Enterprise Discovery Architect in Maidenhead

Enterprise Discovery Architect

Experience : 5+ years

Job Type : Full-time

Role Overview

VE3 is seeking an experienced Enterprise Discovery Architect to lead technology discovery engagements for complex digital transformation, modernisation and enterprise technology programmes.

The Enterprise Discovery Architect will work with senior client stakeholders to understand business objectives, assess existing technology landscapes, identify risks and opportunities, and translate discovery findings into clear architecture options, transformation roadmaps and executable delivery workstreams.

This is a client-facing role requiring a combination of broad technology knowledge, enterprise and solution architecture experience, consulting capability and strong workshop facilitation skills.

The successful candidate will be comfortable operating in situations where the client’s requirements, problems or future direction are not yet fully defined.

They will be able to create clarity from ambiguity, ask intelligent and challenging questions, bring structure to complex discussions and help clients make informed technology decisions.

The role is not limited to producing architecture diagrams.

It requires someone who can lead conversations across business, technology, data, security, operations, commercial and delivery teams, and convert those discussions into practical recommendations.

Requirements

Key Responsibilities

• Discovery Planning and Leadership
• Plan and lead client technology discovery engagements.
• Define the objectives, scope, stakeholders, agenda and expected outputs for discovery sessions.
• Design and facilitate workshops involving business leaders, technology teams, operational stakeholders, security specialists, product teams and third-party suppliers.
• Establish a structured discovery approach appropriate to the client, programme and level of maturity.
• Ensure that discovery activities remain focused on business outcomes rather than becoming technology-led discussions.
• Identify where further specialist input, evidence or technical investigation is required.
• Coordinate contributions from VE3 subject-matter experts across cloud, applications, data, integration, cybersecurity, AI and delivery.
• Stakeholder Engagement and Facilitation
• Engage confidently with CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, CISOs, programme directors, enterprise architects, business leaders and operational teams.
• Facilitate discussions involving stakeholders with different priorities, perspectives and levels of technical understanding.
• Ask diagnostic, open and follow-up questions to identify root causes rather than accepting stated requirements at face value.
• Challenge assumptions constructively and professionally.
• Identify areas where stakeholder views, requirements or priorities conflict.
• Create a shared understanding of the current position, desired outcomes and decisions required.
• Ensure that quieter or less senior stakeholders have appropriate opportunities to contribute.
• Summarise and play back findings during workshops to confirm accuracy and alignment.
• Maintain control of workshop scope, timing and outcomes.
• Current-State Assessment
• Assess the client’s current business and technology environment.
• Review applications, platforms, infrastructure, cloud services, data, integrations, identity, security and operational processes.
• Identify technology dependencies, duplication, fragmentation, technical debt and architectural constraints.
• Assess existing technology strategies, standards, roadmaps and investment commitments.
• Understand existing delivery models, support arrangements, supplier relationships and internal capabilities.
• Identify gaps in documentation, governance, ownership and decision-making.
• Evaluate the impact of legacy systems and unsupported or obsolete technologies.
• Assess non-functional considerations, including resilience, scalability, availability, performance, security and maintainability.
• Business and Capability Analysis
• Understand the business drivers behind the proposed technology initiative.
• Identify expected outcomes, benefits, success measures and critical business capabilities.
• Map business needs to technology capabilities and enabling services.
• Identify user, customer and operational pain points.
• Explore current manual processes, workarounds and areas of inefficiency.
• Assess whether stated requirements reflect genuine business needs or predetermined solution preferences.
• Support capability mapping, value-stream analysis and operating-model discussions where appropriate.
• Architecture Development
• Develop clear and proportionate architecture outputs based on discovery findings.
• Produce current-state and target-state architecture views.
• Develop context diagrams, ecosystem maps, application landscapes, integration maps and data-flow diagrams.
• Define high-level architecture principles and design considerations.
• Identify potential technology options and assess their relative advantages, risks and constraints.
• Develop transition architectures and phased transformation approaches.
• Ensure recommendations consider business, data, application, integration, infrastructure, security and operational architecture.
• Avoid premature product selection or detailed solution design where discovery evidence is insufficient.
• Clearly distinguish confirmed requirements, assumptions, recommendations and areas requiring further analysis.
• Technology Strategy and Roadmaps
• Translate discovery findings into strategic technology recommendations.
• Develop prioritised roadmaps covering immediate improvements, medium-term modernisation and longer-term transformation.
• Separate tactical quick wins from strategic architecture changes.
• Identify delivery workstreams, dependencies, sequencing and decision points.
• Define practical next steps that can progress into architecture, procurement, proof-of-concept or implementation phases.
• Support clients in understanding the implications of different investment and delivery options.
• Consider technology choices in the context of cost, complexity, delivery risk, organisational readiness and long-term sustainability.
• Risk, Governance and Decision Support
• Identify architectural, technical, delivery, security, commercial and operational risks.
• Maintain structured records of risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies and decisions.
• Support the establishment of appropriate architecture governance.
• Define areas requiring technical assurance or specialist review.
• Present options in a balanced and evidence-based manner.
• Help clients understand trade-offs between speed, cost, risk, flexibility and technical quality.
• Support decision-making without overstating certainty where evidence remains incomplete.
• Proposal and Pre-Sales Support
• Support VE3 account, consulting and delivery teams during early-stage client engagements.
• Participate in client qualification and solution-shaping discussions.
• Help define discovery scopes, statements of work and engagement approaches.
• Contribute to proposals, presentations and tender responses.
• Develop high-level delivery approaches, workstream structures and indicative resource requirements.
• Support effort, timeline and cost estimation based on discovery findings.
• Identify opportunities where VE3 capabilities can address client needs.
• Ensure that recommendations remain client-led and are not shaped solely around predetermined VE3 services or products.
• Discovery Outputs and Documentation
• Produce clear, concise and client-ready deliverables, which may include:
• Discovery reports
• Executive summaries
• Current-state assessments
• Technology landscape reviews
• Business capability maps
• Stakeholder and user-needs summaries
• Current-state architecture diagrams
• Target-state architecture diagrams
• Integration and data-flow views
• Architecture principles
• Technology option assessments
• Risk and dependency registers
• Prioritised opportunity backlogs
• Transformation roadmaps
• Delivery workstream definitions
• Indicative delivery plans
• High-level resource models
• Recommendations for subsequent phases
• Technology Coverage

The Enterprise Discovery Architect is expected to have broad understanding across a wide technology landscape.

Deep specialist expertise in every area is not required, but the successful candidate must understand how the different domains interact and when specialist support is needed.

Relevant areas include

• Enterprise and solution architecture
• Cloud platforms, including Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud
• Hybrid and multi-cloud environments
• Enterprise applications
• ERP, CRM and line-of-business platforms
• Custom application development
• Legacy application modernisation
• Saa S, COTS and low-code platforms
• API management and systems integration
• Event-driven and service-oriented architecture
• Data platforms, analytics and business intelligence
• Data governance, quality, lineage and master data
• Artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation
• Identity and access management
• Cybersecurity, privacy and compliance
• Dev Ops, Dev Sec Ops and platform engineering
• Containers, Kubernetes and infrastructure as code
• Enterprise service management and support models
• Observability, monitoring and operational resilience
• Digital workplace and collaboration platforms
• Technology operating models and governance

Essential Experience

• Significant experience in enterprise architecture, solution architecture, technology consulting or digital transformation.
• Demonstrable experience leading technology discovery or assessment engagements.
• Experience planning and facilitating workshops with senior business and technology stakeholders.
• Experience working across multiple architecture domains rather than within a single technology specialism.
• Experience assessing complex and fragmented technology environments.
• Experience developing current-state and target-state architecture.
• Experience translating business objectives into technology capabilities and architecture recommendations.
• Experience producing technology strategies, roadmaps and option assessments.
• Experience presenting findings and recommendations to senior leadership.
• Experience working in environments where requirements are incomplete, ambiguous or contested.
• Experience collaborating with specialist architects, engineers, security teams, data teams and delivery leads.
• Experience contributing to proposals, statements of work, bids or pre-sales activities.
• Strong written communication and client-facing documentation skills.

Essential Skills and Capabilities

• Architecture and Technology
• Broad understanding of modern enterprise technology.
• Strong enterprise and solution architecture capability.
• Ability to connect business, data, application, integration, infrastructure and security considerations.
• Ability to develop clear architecture models without unnecessary complexity.
• Understanding of cloud adoption, modernisation and migration approaches.
• Understanding of technical debt, legacy constraints and transition architecture.
• Ability to evaluate technology options objectively.
• Understanding of non-functional requirements and operational considerations.
• Ability to identify when a specialist architect or technical expert is required.
• Consulting and Discovery
• Strong questioning, listening and analytical skills.
• Ability to identify root causes, dependencies and hidden constraints.
• Ability to structure complex and ambiguous information.
• Ability to distinguish business needs from preferred technology solutions.
• Ability to synthesise large amounts of information quickly.
• Ability to create a clear narrative from conflicting stakeholder inputs.
• Strong problem-solving and critical-thinking capability.
• Commercial awareness and understanding of how recommendations affect cost, risk and delivery.
• Workshop Facilitation
• Strong facilitation and presentation skills.
• Ability to establish authority and credibility in senior client environments.
• Ability to manage difficult, dominant or conflicting stakeholders.
• Ability to keep workshops focused and outcome-driven.
• Ability to adapt facilitation style to different audiences.
• Ability to explain complex technology concepts in accessible language.
• Ability to manage time, scope and expectations effectively.
• Ability to summarise decisions and actions clearly.
• Communication
• Excellent verbal and written English.
• Strong executive communication skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to produce concise, high-quality client deliverables.
• Ability to present recommendations without overstating certainty.
• Ability to challenge constructively while maintaining positive stakeholder relationships.

Desirable Experience

• Experience working for a technology consultancy, systems integrator or professional-services organisation.
• Experience in regulated or public-sector environments.
• Experience with UK government, healthcare, financial services, utilities, education, housing or other complex enterprise environments.
• Experience with formal enterprise architecture practices or frameworks.
• Experience supporting procurement, tendering or technology partner selection.
• Experience with service design, product discovery or business architecture.
• Experience developing business cases or investment options.
• Experience supporting major cloud, ERP, CRM, data, integration or cybersecurity transformation programmes.
• Experience assessing AI readiness, data maturity or automation opportunities.
• Experience working with delivery teams through the transition from discovery into implementation.

Qualifications and Certifications

Relevant qualifications or certifications may include

• TOGAF
• BCS Enterprise and Solution Architecture
• Archi Mate
• AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud architecture certifications
• ITIL
• SAFe
• Scrum or Agile certifications
• Business analysis or service-design qualifications
• Security architecture or cloud-security certifications

Qualifications are desirable but will not replace demonstrable experience in leading successful client discovery engagements.

Personal Attributes

• The successful candidate will be

• Confident but not overbearing
• Curious and analytical
• Comfortable with uncertainty
• Structured and methodical
• Commercially aware
• Client-focused
• Pragmatic rather than theoretical
• Able to challenge respectfully
• Comfortable working across multiple technology domains
• Able to build trust quickly
• Able to remain neutral when assessing technology options
• Able to operate independently while collaborating effectively with wider teams
• Honest about areas requiring specialist expertise
• Focused on producing actionable outcomes rather than documentation for its own sake
• About VE3

VE3 is a technology and digital services organisation delivering complex transformation, cloud, data, application, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and managed-service programmes.

We work with clients to understand complex business and technology challenges, develop practical transformation strategies and deliver secure, scalable and sustainable solutions.

Our consulting approach is outcome-led, technology-informed and evidence-based.

We expect our architects and consultants to understand the client’s real problem before recommending a solution.